Books About DNA: The Century of the Gene by Evelyn Fox Keller

by Dr. Hsien-Hsien Lei
Posted April 25, 2008 in Books About DNA, DNA Quotes and Excerpts, DNA in General

The Century of the Gene by Evelyn Fox Keller

In a book that promises to change the way we think and talk about genes and genetic determinism, Evelyn Fox Keller, one of our most gifted historians and philosophers of science, provides a powerful, profound analysis of the achievements of genetics and molecular biology in the twentieth century, the century of the gene. Not just a chronicle of biology’s progress from gene to genome in one hundred years, The Century of the Gene also calls our attention to the surprising ways these advances challenge the familiar picture of the gene most of us still entertain.

In a CBC Radio interview, Dr. Evelyn Fox Keller talks more about genes and public perception. (HT: Women in Science)

For more discussion on what is a gene, see this Genome Research article – What is a gene, post-ENCODE? History and updated definition.

…we propose a tentative update to the definition of a gene: A gene is a union of genomic sequences encoding a coherent set of potentially overlapping functional products.

DNA Network member Sandra Porter at Discovering Biology in a Digital World gave her definition of a gene last year.

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